TOP 50 FEMALE/MALE FIGHTS IN COMICS: 50

I could have made any post #50, since none of them are rated in ascending or descending order. But I may as well choose as my #50 another #50.

BATGIRL #50, by Dylan Horrocks and Rick Leonardi, happily qualifies by both my selection-terms: it's both a fight of good duration and one with symbolic resonance for the central character and the "Batman Family" of which she's a member.

The basic setup: Cassandra Cain is raised by her natural father David Cain to become a supreme assassin. As the issue's opening pages clarify, Cain did so with training-methods that most would call child abuse, but as a result Cassandra became a martial artist, superior in some respects even to Batman. Batman (for whom David Cain was formerly a martial-arts mentor for a time) rescues Cassandra and through an involved set of circumstances, Cassandra became the new Batgirl. As a child of martial (rather than marital) abuse, Batgirl becomes the poster child for the slogan: "whatever does not kill me makes me stronger." Nevertheless, tensions do develop between Batgirl and her "new father" Batman, some of which have roots in Cassandra's ambivalent relationship to her real father.

BATGIRL #50 brings out those tensions by exposing both heroes to "Soul," a drug designed to cause victims to lose control of their inhibitions, eventuating in a long and grueling Bat-fight that only ends when Batgirl works through her "issues" and her better self surfaces. The final page makes it unclear as to whether Batman was fully exposed to the drug as was Batgirl: when he implies that he may have prolonged the fight to help Cassandra work things out, Barbara Gordon asks him if the whole fight was some sort of "screwed up therapy session." Clearly, it is to Batman, and probably to the authors as well.

Next week I'll address the greater subject of "superhero trauma" in a concluding post to top off this series (and maybe the blog as well), because said trauma, and the concept of stylized violence in art generally, bear closely upon my reasons for doing the blog at all.

TOP 50 FEMALE/MALE FIGHTS IN COMICS: 49

Supergirl has now undergone three major iterations. The newest one, debuting in the mid-2000s, may not be the best, but the newest heroine does have certain transgressive elements the other two could not have pulled off, as SUPERGIRL #15 demonstrates.

Without going in to the backstory of the heroine, suffice to say that this story builds on some of the familial traumas that inform Supergirl's origins. The story itself concludes an arc in which Supergirl, having dated a superhero named Power Boy long enough to become more than a little attached, suddenly finds that he's as loony as the proverbial bedbug-- if the bedbug were born on Apokolips, as PB was.

Joe Kelly and Ian Churchill are essentially writing a story of spousal abuse through the medium of superhero characters. As such they prolong the heroine's abuse a bit to keep up the comparison with real-life situations, before they permit Supergirl to fight back. The fight-scenes aren't that long but the moment when the aggrieved heroine drops a house on Power Boy's head is a show-stopper.

I'm of the impression that later on Power Boy cleaned up his psycho act somewhat and reconciled with Supergirl. But to say the least, they don't go back to being boyfriend and girlfriend.

TOP 50 FEMALE/MALE FIGHTS IN COMICS: 47

Though I only read 1990s titles from Image Comics as occasional quarter-books, I'd find it interesting to see someone attempt a sociological study of "The Image of Women in Nineties Image Books." For better or worse (and most fans would say the latter), Image promulgated more titles starring female characters in that decade than any comics-company since Fiction House.

Of course, Nineties Image built its success with heroines through a "Victoria's Secret" approach to the female of the species, an approach not that different than what one found in the old Fiction House titles. I don't fault Image for having used sex to sell books, only for using sex to sell dull books.

However, one three-issue series proved an exception to the posture-and-moan aesthetic of many Image titles. This was VELOCITY, a three-issue series spinning off the adventures of a super-fast heroine from the super-team "Cyberforce," written by Kurt Busiek and pencilled by Anthony Chun.

The story arc describes a simple "rite of passage" for the young and rather timid superheroine Velocity. She's relentlesly pursued by a shapechanging villain named Charnel, who's aware that she's afraid of him and decides to prolong her agonies by hunting her before he kills her. By issue #3 Velocity must finally "woman up" to overcome her fears and find a means to stop the near-invulnerable Charnel. This may not be the only time an Image character actually *thinks* in order to counter an opponent, but it's the only time *I've* seen it.

As a side-note, Charnel in his "normal" form is depicted as a huge, steroidal brute-- in other words, he looks like most of the Image heroes. In contrast Velocity is not like the more frequent "Victoria's Secret" Image heroine: she has character and brains-- which makes her closer in spirit to a Silver Age superhero, like Velocity's ancestor "The Flash." Did the authors, intentionally or otherwise, structure a faceoff in which "Silver Age," represented by rational thought and planning, overcomes the brute force of "the Iron Age?" A tempting thought, if not one I'd argue all that vehemently.

TOP 50 FEMALE/MALE FIGHTS IN COMICS: 47

GHOST, a flawed but inventive 1990s series from Dark Horse Comics, featured a heroine with the perfect power for a woman who hates men's baser natures. Ghost could become a phantom no physical body could touch, and yet, because in early adventures she had no memory of her life before becoming a "ghost," she had to carry on interacting with the "real world" in order to find out how she became that way.

During her investigations she butted heads with a black-clad vigilante known only as "X," perhaps best described as Batman on a really bad day. Whether for reasons relating to sublimated sexuality or to simple dislike of a rival alpha-type, Ghost and X experienced true hate on sight.

GHOST #21 (Luke/Reis) has the two heroes overwhelmed by a mutual enemy and stuck together in a confining room, where they will either kill each other or come to terms. The two end up doing both, and it's a good fight, in which Ghost compensates for X's greater strength by turning phantom when he tries to hit her-- though any attempt she makes to hit him exposes her to danger.

By story's end the heroes make common cause and team up to defeat the villain, but still don't like each other. Just like they were married.

TOP 50 FEMALE/MALE FIGHTS IN COMICS: 46

Yes, Wonder Woman alone gets two posts. Why? If you have to ask the question, you won't understand the answer.

My main reason for including JUSTICE LEAGUE #143, written by Steve Englehart and drawn by Dick Dillin, is for its "clash of icons" resonance. The battle itself is just two pages, and comes about because Wonder Woman has been made the pawn of a villain. She and Superman trade blows briefly until the Amazon Princess trumps the Man of Steel by subduing him with her magic lasso. This therefore is a somewhat ambivalent victory, not least because the Amazon's not fighting of her own will. Still, though DC has never stated outright that Wonder Woman is equal in power to Superman-- and has strongly suggested the opposite in the character's own feature-- I approve of Englehart treating the two heroes as equals in power during the duration of the fight. It's the "old school" in me, no doubt.

Ironically, though I like Englehart's treatment of the heroine's powers, I don't like his treatment of her character. This Wonder Woman is needlessly abrasive and arrogant, both apparently in compensation for a crisis in the character's self-confidence. Perhaps this attitude could have been justified within the sphere of the Amazon's own series, but here in JUSTICE LEAGUE, it just seems like typical Marvelesque "hero with a problem" schtick. Perhaps an intemperate Wonder Woman would've been an improvement over the more typical "plaster saint" conception, but again, the world will never know.

TOP 50 FEMALE/MALE FIGHTS IN COMICS: 45

In the space of one blogpost, can anyone do justice to the complicated cosmos of CEREBUS and/or philosophical outlook of its author Dave Sim?

Clearly not, so I won't try. I will say that the question of whether any girls, "super" or not, should be "on top" *is* a philosophical point that does get addressed in the CEREBUS world.

However, if one does know that world fairly well, as I think that I do, it is interesting to see Sim's character Cerebus-- a tough, sword-skilled aardvark in a sword-and-sorcerous setting-- encounter a female able to match him in battle-skill, even if he gets out of the encounter through comic means.

Prior to the introduction of "Geet-a" in 1980, CEREBUS had taken a couple of friendly-satirical pot-shots at the then-current success of Marvel's RED SONJA feature, then executed by old comics-pro Frank Thorne. Sim's satire of Sonja was "Red Sophia," who was fairly adept with a blade (she trashes a barful of rowdies when they "besmirch" her honor) but whom Cerebus could defeat without half trying.

Later, in issue #19, Cerebus encounters a near-lookalike for Sophia, who can only utter her name ("Geet-a") and who very nearly kills the aardvark with her sword-skills. Cerebus makes a timely escape. While hiding from Geet-a, Cerebus comes across Henrot (father of Sophia and anagram of "Thorne"), who explains that he created Geet-a magically as a substitute for his absent daughter. Cerebus manages to get out of the situation not by facing Geet-a's skill again but by turning loose a bunch of goofy magic creatures called "Gerbies" that enfold Geet-a and suck away all her negative energies-- and whether she lives or dies, that's the last one sees of Geet-a in the CEREBUS cosmos.

The name "Geet-a" was a pun on "Ghita," a character Thorne was doing for Warren's 1984 magazine, one best described as a racier version of Red Sonja.

TOP 50 FEMALE/MALE FIGHTS IN COMICS: #44

Sticking with the theme of comic farce for a little longer, I re-visit Japan, specifically Hinata House, the dwelling-place of the LOVE HINA series.

LOVE HINA is basically a "harem comedy" in which a blundering college-age guy, Keitaro, finds himself in charge of a women's dormitory apartment. Naturally, at first none of the women initially want him there, but soon they're all more or less in love with him. That's how harem comedies always work. But creator Ken Akamatsu does put a fair amount of thought into crafting the harem, and of those, one of the best is Motoko Aoyama, the character seen threatening Keitaro with her sword in an anime clip.




Not to go into huge detail, but Motoko, despite being able split rocks with her blade, is deathly afraid of turtles. It's possible that Akamatsu was making a Freudian play here: he has Motoko flee her family for the dormitory because Motoko has a "primal scene" experience where she witnesses her sister Tsuruko making out with her husband. (Tsuruko says it was just "kissing," but...) On top of that, one or two stories imply that "turtle" is a code-word for "penis."

So when events transpire (in TPB #8) that force the beleaguered Motoko to employ her kendo skills against a gigantic (presumably male) turtle-- can she do it, to save her friends from death?

What do you think?

And she does get more friendly with Keitaro after she conquers this primal fear of, uh, turtles. Very interesting...